Hervis Jizerska 25 classic race day!-February 8, 2020

The big day has arrived. The four of us are skiing the Jizerska 25 and it’s sunny with temperatures around 0 degrees- a perfect day!

The boys drove up to the start from Tetin and we took the bus up to meet them. We had their skis as Ross had waxed them, thankfully. At Matthew’s car (in the VIP parking lot) he presented us all with really nice new Johnny Servis ski jackets to wear for the race! So nice! We all had our Canada hats too.

Next, we spent a little time with several other hundred skiers in the big warming tent before we headed out to the start.

We were all in wave one so we lined up together with 1200 skiers.

Ross shot off like a rocket and we never saw him again until the finish!

I caught up to the boys about a kilometre after the craziness of the start. I’m always a little over cautious and patient in the start as I don’t want too break a pole or fall over. It was a steady uphill climb until about 10km and I pushed up pretty hard and the boys were hanging on. We stayed together and chatted a little along the way. The sunshine and views were glorious.

Matthew actually wanted to stop and take a picture but it really wasn’t possible, no room. I stopped at the first checkpoint and had some warm tea on the way up but they didn’t want to stop. I caught back up to them. Once we got to about the 16 km mark I was out in front and thought I’d ski at the pace that I felt I could without wasting myself for the 50 km race tomorrow. The trail was really fun, especially the long straight downhills even though it was a bit narrow for 3 tracks. I just kept going and all of sudden I was approaching the finish line.

The boys were behind me – phew! Me, being the eldest of the three of us, felt a great sense of accomplishment at getting to the finish line first!! I finished in 2 hours and 28 minutes and was 17th in the Female 55-59 and 416 overall out of 1012 racers. I was pretty happy. Matthew and Greg weren’t far behind, only 4 minutes- first Matthew then Greg a few seconds later. As it turns out Greg had a major wipeout on the downhill, bent his pole and had about 5 skiiers ski over his hat while he was sprawled all over the track. Thankfully he was okay!

Meanwhile Ross finished in an hour and 50 minutes- so fast! He was 15th in his age group and 98th overall out of 1012 racers – broke top 100!!!. He was first Canadian and passed 118 skiers. Very impressive!

It was a super, super fun day! Of course, we celebrated with a few pivos (beer) outside in the sunshine – a perfect spring skiing day! We’ve decided that doing events together is a fabulous way to spend time together as a family and we’re going to do it more often!

The boys drove back to Tetin and we took the bus back down to Liberec to get ready for the big race tomorrow- the Jizerska 50 km! What a great day!